


To Fall

by Krystalicekitsu



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, Charity Auctions, Fix-It, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-09-10
Updated: 2011-09-10
Packaged: 2017-10-23 20:37:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,700
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/254743
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Krystalicekitsu/pseuds/Krystalicekitsu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>At the end of everything, one last, desperate gamble may give Sam everything he's ever wanted.</p>
            </blockquote>





	To Fall

**Author's Note:**

  * For [rinnus](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=rinnus).



> for [](http://rinnus.livejournal.com/profile)[**rinnus**](http://rinnus.livejournal.com/) for the [](http://thepurpledove.livejournal.com/profile)[**thepurpledove**](http://thepurpledove.livejournal.com/) charity auction. The prompt was _Sam has to save Gabriel – some nice h/c_ which was very generic and I found myself writing this rather out of the blue. _Slightly_ AU 2014–type future in that Dean said yes and Sam didn't, Cas still has his powers (mostly) and it's not quite 2013.

Castiel's eyes are piercingly blue.

Piercingly blue and bright, but not in a luminous way. In that hopeful way that only ever turns out as anything but intent on the seraph because he still gets his human signs mixed up. For all his souped-up new archangelness, he still has a fuck of a time telling a sarcastic smirk from a smile.

Not that he's had a lot to practice a smile with.

They'd thought that ending the apocalypse was it. That pulling the plug on the whole shebang would be enough to put everything right and put things back the way they were.

God, were they naive.

Because things didn't get better. Things just got worse. And worse and worse.

The horsemen, out from Lucifer's thumb and without their rings, might not be as powerful or evil, but they were far from gone. The rampant wave of deaths followed on the heels of angels assuming places on Earth and trying to get what they could. The Apocalyptic Fire Sale of the century and the battles for scraps of power and land have brought more than one city to its knees. Or destroyed them entirely. Castiel and his small control of the Host is doing its best to keep the angels in line, but Raphael and his brood are doing everything in their power to open the Cage again. To let Michael and Lucifer out.

And Sam… as much as Sam would love to see his brother again, he can't. He promised Dean he wouldn't look for a way to bust him out. He promised he'd settle in (sure, with a bottle of whiskey and a shotgun of rock salt), fall in love (he's already in a long standing relationship with Dean's car and his leather jacket) and make a life for himself (hard to make a life if you're not really living, and Dean should know that more than anyone).

Truth be told, even if Michael and Lucifer crawled up from the cesspool of that hell hole right now, the world can't get much worse.

Castiel is still staring at him.

Sam doesn't know why. It's not like this wasn't his idea (once he'd realized the possibility) in the first place.

 _"So…" Sam started, voice trailing off. He shifted in his seat. It was hard to know what to say, now. With Dean gone…_

 _Everything was harder with Dean gone._

 _"It's possible," Cas turned away from the desk where Sam had spread his research out to where the hunter was hovering in the doorway, giving him some room._

 _"Though I'm not sure you realize what this would do, Sam." Castiel's eyes were hard._

 _Sam's expression doesn't change. "You send me back and I stop it. If it's meant to change, it'll change and-"_

 _"To **you** , Sam. To **you** ," Castiel growled, advancing a step and then two and three until he was up in Sam's space like he used to be in Dean's. Replacing one brother for the other._

 _"Doing what you're doing, even over so short a time- It could kill you, Sam, or make your mind so twisted what comes out the other side wouldn't even be a demon. You'd be insane and broken and it'd be a **mercy** to throw you in the Cage. If you wanted to commit suicide, there are easier ways." Castiel's expression darkened further. "I could just kill you myself."_

 _Sam held his ground. "This is the only way and you **know that** , Cas."_

 _Sam's eyes narrowed in realization. "This **is** the only way, isn't it?"_

 _Castiel cast his eyes away._

 _Softly, Castiel replied, "It's the only **chance**. It's not the way."_

 _"I don't care, Cas. I've got to try."_

"If you make it out the other side in one piece," Castiel states, emotions locked safely away, "don’t move around for a while. You'll be sore and in a great deal of unimaginable pain."

"Don't look for anyone who isn't by your side," he continues, starting to mix and grind the herbs and minerals and poisons that they'd painstakingly gathered for months, "You might, _might_ have knowledge of either this world or that one, but don't fight whichever one you get for the one you don't have; your mind'll be under enough of a strain already."

Cas hands him the mixture, a purplish grey mush congealing in the bottom of a dixie cup. Sam purses his lips but downs the goop- and gags.

It tastes bitter, such a vile, unnatural taste that it curdles his stomach. He fights the urge to choke it back up but he's in this to the end and Cas' chants confirm that the angel isn't backing out of this either. His vision goes unfocused and dim and he starts to lose feeling in his legs and hands. There's a heavy weight over his chest, _in_ his chest, before the blindingly sharp agony of a knife through his gut breaks it all.

"Sam," he can barely see anything, but Cas' voice is clear, "Sam. It's finished. You have to go. Just remember- don't fight it. You have…"

The rest is lost as Sam slips away into darkness.

The darkness isn't dark on the other side.

No, the other side is violent flashes of light, ripping and brutal pulses of sound and violent, jarring discordant flexes of space and perception. Sam feels like someone is screaming in his ear through a radio with a bad connection cranked to full volume with a strobe light two inches from his eyes. His body can't decide if it's falling up or down or back or forth. Or if it's even falling at all.

As disorienting as the trip is, being slammed back into normal perception has him stumbling mid-gait, gasping back a whimper before tripping to his knees. His vision spins before blacking out.

He comes to with Dean's worried face above him and his shouts in his ears. "Sam! SAMMY!"

Sam coughs, throat dry in a way that his mouth soon replicates because that's _Dean_. Dean. _His_ Dean. No Michael, no condescension, no unearthly power. Just Dean.

"Sam?" Dean's voice is calming slightly, but he's still worried, still insistent and Sam closes his eyes, soaks it up.

He works a hand up to Dean's jacket and curls his hand there partly to reassure his brother and partly for himself, knuckles resting against Dean's heart, feeling the breakneck pace seeping into his bones the way his warmth is seeping into his hand and Dean's scent is seeping into his mind.

Even if they don't save the world, this right here is-

Sam's eyes snap open again. There's something else. He's supposed to be doing something else. No, there's some _one_ else. Someone important. But-

Not Bobby, not Dean, not Ca-

 _'-that one- don't fight- get for the one- don't have- enough- strain-'_

Cas… There's something there…

Cas, older and hopeless. Bitter, resigned. Lost. A general without his heart. Hopeless battles. Power, so much power and nowhere to use it. Broken pieces, something forgotten. No, something _lost_.

"Sam, come on, man. You gotta talk to me," Dean's worried plea breaks through the mystery. He can figure it out later.

Sam opens his eyes and smiles up at Dean, a bright, joyous smile.

"Sam?" Dean pulls back nervously.

"It's fine, Dean," Sam croaks. He'll have to get something to drink; his throat feels like sandpaper.

"What was it?" Dean asks, and there's a bottle against his lips, glass cold and the water stale, but it's so soothing and welcome, sweet in a necessary way that Sam gulps his first mouthful, coughing when it irritates his throat. "Vision? I thought we were done with those."

"No," Sam coughs out, licking half heartedly at the water running down his chin.

"Here, hold on." Sam closes his eyes before Dean turns back with a dry cloth to clean him up. There's something he definitely is forgetting.

"Sit up for a second," Dean orders and Sam struggles up, muscles jerking while Dean frowns on. He collapses forward against Dean's chest despite his best efforts not to.

"Sammy? Hey, common, man. What's up with this cuddling crap?" Dean's rough annoyance would fool almost anyone, but for the worried, almost-crack on the last word. Dean's freaked out.

"'S nothing," Sam slurs into Dean's shirt and before he knows it, he's slipping back into that dark.

 _"Sam," Cas' eyes are intense. "Whatever you do, don't-"_

Sam jerks awake.

"Well, look who's up. Didn't figure the sasquatch would sleep like a bear."

"Stuff it, Gabriel. Why don't you go do some fucking good and get our blood back?"

Sam's head snaps to his left and to the chair where the archangel's propped his feet on the low table.

"Gabriel," Sam hushes in awe, ignoring the other's frown because Gabriel's not supposed to be here. Or is he? No, he's-

Sam winces, bringing a hand up to his forehead at the steak knife trying to dig its way through his skull.

 _"Sam," Castiel, old and tired, dead inside-_

"Sam?"

"What'd you do to him?"

"I didn't touch him, short bus, so-"

 _"It's witchcraft, short bus."_

"-keep your panties on."

"Sam? Hey, Sam?"

The confused scramble in his brain clears up as gently as it furiously appeared.

"Hey, here." And he's being eased upright, blinking against the low bedside light even as he makes a half-hearted grab for the bottle of water being pressed against his lips. He gulps down a mouthful, coughing when the cold hits his dry and parched throat.

Dean murmurs an, 'easy there,' before the bottle is pulled back, a hand rubbing back and forth between his shoulder blades. Sam heaves a few more coughs, body and bed shuddering as his mind drifts.

Dean. _Dean_. Dean _and_ Gabriel. Both of them. Together. In-

 _Elyssian Fields Hotel._ Shit, _Lucifer_.

Sam looks up in a panic, hands scrambling for Dean, fisting, tangling in his Henley even as Gabriel's head jerks up and his eyes narrow. Dean scowls at Gabriel, a hand coming to grip Sam's wrist in reassurance. "What is-"

"Gotta go," Gabriel says shortly and the next flash of lightning has him gone.

Sam doesn't waste a second considering. He knows, remembers, where their room was, is, and the convention hall of the gods' was on the opposite side of the hotel.

Launches himself with all the force of a fighter missile off the bed, easily ignoring Dean's shouts, slams the door open and is tearing down the hallway. Half a second later, he hears Dean's boots pounding behind him. Good. He'll need the back up.

Running full out takes him past the check out desk in just under five minutes. The lobby is painted in blood and bodies.

Copper, sharp and raw invades his nose, cloying and sweet in his throat and Sam swallows back a gag and keeps running. Behind him, Dean swears vehemently.

He hits the stairwell a minute later. Stairs fly by under his feet three at a time. He rams his way through the third floor door and it hits hard enough that he can hear the plaster crack and crumble under the force.

If he thought the lobby was bad, the layer of bodies lining the hall outside the convention hall is worse. Sam tries not to think about the fact that these were all gods, infinitely stronger than him ( _what the hell are you doing, Sam? Trying to get yourself killed? **Again**?_ ) and presses on, maneuvering around them.

When he turns the last corner, the convention doors are open and he sees Lucifer stepping back through them, painted bloody up to his elbows. He wants to shout, but he's done. No more breath to spare. Not right now, anyways.

He can barely hear Dean's footsteps anymore. Doesn't matter. Not now.

A sharp turn on his heel, hand bouncing him off the wall and into the bloodied and burnt hall, Lucifer and Gabriels before him. 'Gabriels'? Two?

Lucifer's eyes widen and the Gabriel behind him, the one holding the sword, the one with a tinge of regret in his eyes, looks panicked.

It takes Sam all of two hundredths of a second to figure out what was happening. Less than that to open his mouth.

"NO!"

Gabriel's body jerks back, but Lucifer's was already turning around. Catching, holding.

Turning.

Gabriel makes a choked noise. Sam bites off a sob.

The look of sorrow the Devil wears makes the situation that much more bastardized. Not because of the sorrow, no, but because he's doing it _anyway_ , hand and arm twisting and redirecting the weapon even as Sam watches. It feels like he has an eternity just as much as it feels like he has no time at all. But he's mortal. Human even, and there's no way in Hell he could come close to challenging Lucifer in strength.

For a hundredth of a second he watches Lucifer's shoulders shift and glide, inching ever closer in this weird infinite time to piercing his brother's heart. Even slower, it seems, Gabriel's eyes slide to meet his.

The sound that wrenches free of Sam's mouth is less than human, or more than, but it reeks of desperation and agony. Sorrow and bitter hate rush through his blood and the dash of Winchester stubbornness to flavor it has an interesting effect.

Something snaps inside him, bursting free with a nearly audible crack and Lucifer and Gabriel are hurled apart. Gabriel crashes through a table and lies there is a heap, motionless. Sam's far more pre-concerned with the Devil staring him down from where he's landed against the door frame. It's a look of disappointment thinly veiled over sorrow, hatred and frustration. Sam keeps his ground, heart in his throat.

A beat, angel and Vessel staring each other down before Lucifer disappears in a flutter of wings.

"Gabriel!" Sam calls, rushing past Kali struggling to sit up to the archangel crumpled amid the wreckage of a small buffet table.

"Gabriel?" Sam turns him gently to his back, half hoping.

 _Please, please please- just- Not again, please. Don't let it have all been for nothing._

Because _this_ was the important thing. Gabriel. Or saving him. Saving the stupid, short, obnoxious, condescending, self righteous asshole who killed his brother over and over just to prove a point and then put them through hell for days just to prove that his family issues were worse than the Winchesters'.

The bastard he'd, somehow, managed to fall for.

No light show, which Sam was taking for very, _very_ good news even if an unconscious archangel wasn't anything to be clinking cups over. Not this one at least.

Sam almost misses the hole in his chest on the first check for injuries, but the wet stuck to his hand when he palmed over Gabriel's stomach. The very wet, very human hole with just the faintest edge of silver and Sam stares down at Gabriel because Gabriel's an angel, an _arch_ angel and they don’t bleed. Or get hurt, or do anything but live or die.

No half-way with angels and yet he would swear that the bleeding is possibly getting worse and oh, _god_ what does he do? He didn't come all this way just to screw up, _again_.

And then Dean's skidding to a halt beside him, hands frantically searching for the source of blood that isn't Sam's and oh god, he's going to lose Gabriel, isn't he?

He turns to Dean, not sure what's on his face but something breaks on his older brother's when he asks, "Dean, _please_ " and clutches Gabriel to his chest.

Dean nods and turns away with a frown, stripping pieces off the table cloth with efficient strokes of a knife while Sam keeps pressure on the wound. Dean hands him the improvised gauze and Sam packs it into and around the wound efficiently, the way he was taught, but it won't stop _bleeding_.

He jerks when Dean lays a hand on his shoulder, spasm of muscles in shock, nerves twisted too tightly.

"Sam," Dean's voice calm and controlled, eyes saying ' _what the fuck are you doing?_ ' and something skirting the edges of ' _how the hell…?_ ' but Sam's not ready, can't talk about that. Not yet. Not until he knows if-.

Just. Not until.

"Sam, we should get him to a room." Dean strips off more table cloth pointedly, efficient in his folds until Sam's grasping another perfect, tight, crisp square of linen.

"Somewhere with water and a first aid kit."

Sam nods, his head too loose by nerves and panic. He pushes it back down his throat, that feeling of swallowing thorns dipped in acid, pushes it aside, away. Puts it back in the box he can ignore until the lid won't close anymore.

"I think there's a suite a few yards down the hall." He turns to Dean, prays his eyes hold, forces his mask not to slip. "Why don't you see if you can get out to the Impala. Or at least find me a needle and floss?"

A brisk nod and Dean is gone, treading carefully around the fallen gods.

Sam turns back to the archangel lying pale and unresponsive next to him.

Seconds. That's it. Just seconds too late. Or, if not 'too late' then definitely 'not fast enough'.

The shuddering, stifling breath tries to turn into a sob, but Sam bites it back. Bites it back until it comes out a huff, lips tender and sore and gathers up Gabriel as delicately as he can.

He's got no idea how he's going to fix up an archangel. If it were just a matter of the vessel, hey, he might have a shot. But a being of raw _power_?

How the hell do you fix _that_?

  
Gabriel wakes with a low, pained groan and that disturbs him enough he almost wishes himself back into oblivion.

Pagan gods are not supposed to 'wake up'.

 _Arch_ angels are not supposed to 'wake up'.

Seeing as how he's both, he should doubly never 'wake up' when there's not large amounts of mead involved or some pretty nasty spell work. And would you know what? He can't seem to remember either of those fun times recently- Go figure. Not with the Winchesters fucking everything up like the worst fucking wrench that ever had the bad grace to craw itself up from hell.

In fact, the last thing he remembers is-

"Lucifer!"

Only it comes out more as 'Lsssssphgnn'.

"Gabriel?"

Sam.

That's Sam hovering over him like some demented, floppy-haired humming bird. Hovering has never been attractive (he's always associated it with humming birds and bees- and while the look he'd get from Sam if he shared that the hunter reminded him of the birds and the bees would undoubtedly entertain him for _years_ , he's a little more pre-occupied. Namely the fact that Sam is still Sam) but he's never been so glad to see that worried lip and the puppy-dog, 'I'm actually worried but I'm not saying anything' look.

He grunts, trying to remember if he's thought particularly naughty thoughts about this human in particular before, but particular thoughts or not, he's thinking them now.

"Gabriel?" And Sam sounds even more worried now. Gabriel dutifully attempts a full sentence.

"'S my name," he frowns at the taste of pennies in his mouth, rubbing his tongue at the roof to try and dislodge it, "don't wear it out."

"Jesu- God- Gabriel, we thought you were _dead_!" and it seems that Sam's taking the opportunity to freak out in full-on girl mode.

"Good to know you care," he snarks and sits up, ignoring Sam's attempts at restraining hands. "Speaking of, why aren't I?"

Sam pauses and glances down at—

"Oh, come on!" Gabriel complains, loudly. "I liked that shirt."

Clothes butchery aside, the delicate, even stitches look well done and skillfully executed.

"You, uh. I- I mean, we didn't-," Sam sighs, an explosive breath of frustration packed around a tiny spark of something that Gabriel can't read, "Dean and I didn't know if you were still alive or anything and you don't really breathe and neither of us could find a pulse."

Sam stops, and glances down at Gabriel's chest, almost as if he's just now seeing it. "Oh. Sorry about your shirt."

Gabriel rolls his eyes, aware that he's still got no idea what's going on- he should be _dead_ , checked out, ashed, done and doner. But no. And as long as Sam's not Lucifer (and, therefore, the world's not ending) he's strangely okay with not knowing.

"So, ah," Sam rubs the back of his neck and Gabriel watches the movement, admires the way it pulls Sam's shirt across his chest, the angle and lines of his arms, the muscles of his forearm and the tendons in his neck- and ok. He's getting a little distracted.

"We were wondering if this means you'd re-thought your Switzerland policy?”

“Ding, ding, ding! Give the boy a Rolex, he's won the observation prize,” Gabriel drawls. And then has to fight off the surprise and small spark of pleasure when Sam's eyes narrow in annoyance.

“You've never cared before. You're chaotic, and you _definitely_ follow your own set of rules, Gabriel. What's the catch?”

Gabriel swings his legs over the side of the bed, fully intending on getting up- only his legs don't agree and he has half a second to sway slightly, before a large Sam-hand is keeping him from face-planting.

“Yeah, you probably shouldn't be up and about for a bit. Angel or not, that was a pretty lethal hit,” Sam's eyebrows frown at him and Gabriel finds himself turning the Winchester's last question back on him.

“Why do you care?” and if he makes sure to add a touch of snark in there, it's only because it's expected.

But the joke falls flat, as it often does with Sam, and Gabriel's left staring at a pinched and guarded face. Wow, he did _not_ expect to see that look from Sasquatch.

“Some things just need to be done.”

And with that comment and a mention of retrieving Dean and something to eat as Sam shuts the door, Gabriel's left blinking in an old motel room.


End file.
